Sergey Aleynikov, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. computer programmer, was convicted Friday of stealing the confidential source code of the investment bank's high-speed trading system.  He faces as much as 10 years in prison;  the judge changed his bail conditions, requiring Mr. Aleynikov to be subject to home confinement pending sentencing.  The judge also suggested that his name be added to a watch list to prevent him from leaving the country.  Mr. Aleynikov is originally from Russia.

Sergey Aleynikov's conviction is the 2nd guilty verdict in as many months involving the theft of high-speed trading code.  Last month, former Société Générale trader Samarth Agrawal was convicted of stealing the bank's high-frequency trading code after he freely admitted to sharing aspects of the bank's computer code with a rival.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan had alleged that Mr. Aleynikov secretly copied Goldman's confidential source code for its high-frequency trading platform in his last days at the investment bank, with the intention of using it to build a similar trading platform at his new employer, Teza Technologies LLC.  Mr. Aleynikov reportedly was offered compensation worth about $1.15 million to work at Teza, nearly 3 times his pay at Goldman at the time. 

Aleynikov's attorney contended his client simply made a mistake in trying to download open-source code from Goldman, but didn't steal proprietary information from the investment bank.  He added that no efforts were made to sell the information he took, and he didn't share it with Teza.   [NYT Dealbook, 12/10]